Can Being Active Improve The Overall Quality of Your Sleep?

Feb 21, 2020

Exercise and a healthy lifestyle seems to be the winning combo to solve many health problems. Many skin conditions benefit from a balanced diet, cardiovascular problems can be improved with regular exercise; but what about your sleep quality?

The evidence supporting this is quite substantial; it seems that following a healthy lifestyle and a specific training regime will not only make you feel more energised during the day, but also more relaxed when it’s time to go to bed.

We have done a bit of research and found that, actually, it is a combination of things that will improve the overall quality of your sleep – from its duration to its intensity.

Exercise is proven to be a very effective way of increasing the number of hours you will spend sleeping every night. In fact, when we exercise, , we ask our bodies to spend a lot of energy, something that will play a huge part in determining how tired we are at the end of the day.

As it turns out, training regularly will not only help you get in shape, but it will also increase your night’s rest!

…A deeper sleep?

If on one hand developing a regular exercise routine will improve the duration of your night sleep, if you’re looking for a more relaxed rest, then you need to focus on improving the quality of your slow waves. Slow waves refer to deep sleep – the time during which your mind and body rejuvenate.

This highly restorative sleep phase is crucial, as it functions in a similar way to a computer rebooting. All the irrelevant information you have accumulated during the day is stored away and your thoughts are re-organised to make it easier for you to access them. They do say that, when you have a tough decision to make, you should step on it!

Besides helping you achieve a more restful sleep, deep sleep is also useful to control stress and anxiety.

Training in the morning will make you tired, making falling asleep at night a much easier task. However, not everyone is cut out for morning exercise and if you would prefer to complete your routine in the evening, then you should choose a mind-body discipline, like yoga. Perfect to quiet the nervous system, yoga can also help reduce your blood pressure and boost your mood.

And don’t forget that, if you’re looking to improve the overall quality of your sleep, you should establish (and follow) a regular sleep schedule and develop a bedtime routine. Reading a book or drinking a chamomile tea can help you fall asleep – just try to stay away from screens and technology as much as you can!